Religious Freedom

Elizabeth Roelands: Scholarship Writing Project

June 27, 2014

    In 1620, when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, they were seeking freedom from oppressors in their homeland. They wanted a specific type of freedom, which they would live, fight, and die to have. They wanted the freedom to practice their religion unhindered, because they believed that theirs was true Christianity, and that the Anglicanism forced upon them in England was not right. They sought a Puritan version of Christianity, and wanted the religious freedom to practice what they believed was true. Landing on Plymouth Rock, they founded one of the first colonies in North America, and freedom of religion was their basic principle. Today, North American society is still rooted in this freedom of religion, because we have always stood for religious freedom and tolerance, even when we do not agree with the faith of others, because of that original quest for freedom that brought some of the first people here. Even though many in our society have lost their faith in God now, even though most do not go to church every week like their ancestors, religious freedom should keep its status as a basic human right, simply because it was a pillar our society was founded on. Who are we to undermine a founding principle of a nation?

    While the story of the pilgrims is an American tale, simply because Plymouth Rock is on American soil, it is still applicable to Canadians. Canada’s foundation is slightly different, but still based on religious freedom. Our nation’s first colonists, like America’s, wanted the freedom to practice religion as they saw fit. Now, many in our nation defy that principle, claiming that God either does not exist, or that religion is confining. The number of people going to church weekly has declined significantly in recent years. Though some prefer apathy, the principle of religious freedom should remain unaltered. As human beings, we have the right to believe in something beyond ourselves, and while we all have different manifestations of that belief, we should be allowed to adhere to our interpretation of a higher power. A nation has no right to regulate the belief system of its citizens; to do so is to rebuild the Nazi Germany of the 1940s. Canada should maintain the right to religious freedom that Canadians have always enjoyed.

    However, religious freedom should not be an excuse for things that are utterly profane or violent towards others. For example, things like the ancient Aztec human sacrifices should not be permitted in civilized society, because they are an abomination and a defiance of the dignity of human beings, doing violence to the goodness of every life by ending one life before its time. As another example, we could look at Satanism. It is a form of self worship, not a belief in a higher power, claiming that all gods are fictional and we must only serve our own needs, to please the carnal beast inside each of us. On the outset, it may seem like a harmless belief system, which we as a society can tolerate. Reading a little further on the church of satan website however, we find this: “We Satanists are thus our own “Gods,” and as beneficent “deities” we can offer love to those who deserve it and deliver our wrath (within reasonable limits) upon those who seek to cause us—or that which we cherish—harm.” This is a little more alarming, even though it does include the qualifier “within reasonable limits”, because as a group of persons who are their own gods, how are “reasonable limits” defined? There is no basis for morality, except each person’s own good; so long as the individual’s needs and desires are being met, anything is permissible. This is hardly a universally good moral code, for what if one person’s desire is to be an ax murderer or a child molester? These things are not legal in our country, but if the church of satan is allowed to exist, under the umbrella of religious freedom, it would logically follow that such actions would have to be allowed so that we are not discriminating against someone on a religious basis.

    The majority of our citizens could say that they are Christian, part of one or another of the
Christian denominations, whether or not they maintain the faith they were given and practice the beliefs they were raised with. The common tendency to regard religion as something too confining for the average person’s life does not mean that our nation’s freedom of religion should become a part of our past. Our laws as a nation are based on Christian principles of ethics and morality; for example, stealing is illegal both because it is against the seventh commandment, and because taking another’s property denies them their right of ownership. Maybe our individual lives, generally speaking, are no longer based on the same Christian principles that our ancestors held, but there are still some who enjoy the little freedom of religion that still remains in Canada.

    Although Canada’s Christian value system claims to espouse religious freedom for all, there are still some Christian groups that are not allowed to follow their beliefs. For example, Catholics are persecuted, to a certain extent, when they attempt to follow the statutes of the faith as they should be followed. Catholics are called bigoted and intolerant for standing against homosexuality and abortion; authentic Catholicism is no longer permitted despite today’s campaigns against judgement and intolerance. For a society against religious persecutions, there are too many persecutions happening on the basis of disagreement in beliefs. Rather than agreeing to disagree and accepting that everyone believes different things, we get angry with those who believe different things, insisting that they must be wrong because they are different. This phenomenon may be related to the decline in the number of people going to church on a weekly basis. We as a society have lost our roots in the Christian moral code, and have more trouble loving our neighbors than we used to have. Others may be wrong, but they are still human beings made in the image of God that have inherent dignity based on their existence, not on the belief system they adhere to.

    Some have lost their faith due to the fact that religious groups have rules that members are asked to follow, and many would say that to be required to follow a rule is not to be free. However, freedom is not that which allows a person to do anything he chooses at any time; freedom is the right to do what is just. Freedom includes the freedom to do something, but also the freedom from coercion from outside sources. We are truly free when we fulfill our nature as human beings, choosing our proximate good, without being forced into anything by another. Each person’s conscience is formed through the lessons learned in childhood and early adulthood, and we must be given the freedom to follow our conscience in society; to do what we believe is right.

    While many of our citizens in Canada have lost their faith, or refuse to be part of a religious community because of the “rules”, religious freedom must still be a part of our nation’s law code. We have to correct the errors made in the name of religious freedom, and right the wrongs done by a lack of acceptance, but there is still a need for religious freedom in our society. To remove that freedom is to sentence those who do still believe in a higher power to the persecution of those who no longer believe. Having faith should not subject a person to pain or wrongdoing. Canada is a multicultural society, and as such, we have people of a vast number of different faiths as our citizens. All should be allowed to practice their religion as they see fit, even though they may be different from those around them, so long as they are not inflicting harm on others. Every religion in accordance with the just public order, serving the common good, should be allowed in Canada. We cannot undermine the freedom of religion that caused our ancestors to make the long and arduous journey across the ocean to the New World, though they left behind all they knew in the process. If religious freedom was important enough to make a difficult journey to a new land and start a whole new life, it should remain just as important in the society built by those who left home in search of that freedom.